[PLUG-TALK] Freedom in common infrastructure

Michael M. Moore michael at writemoore.net
Fri Feb 13 17:19:33 UTC 2009


On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> wrote:
<snip>
> iPhones are not simply private computing devices. They also operate on
> a shared, crucial telephony infrastructure. It's legitimate to ask
> how "street legal" translates into telephony.
>
> Apple's problem is that it thinks it should be the arbiter here, hence
> the appeal to the DMCA. No private entity should have that right.
>
> So who should? What entity defines and enforces the public good in
> telephony infrastructure?

Isn't the problem (or part of the problem) that we don't know yet?  We
still have a regulatory infrastructure that mostly treats our
communications networks as discrete, separate entities.  Phones are
phones and sometimes cellphones, television is television and
sometimes cable, the Internet is the Internet.  The problem is that
these days, cable is the Internet, phones are television, the Internet
is phone calls, and so on.  Throw in community, corporate, and
municipal WiFi and WiMAX, incumbent protectionism, property rights
issues, and the like, and you have a whole pile of intractable
conflicts to sort through.

I don't agree with Apple's position, but I don't blame it for rushing
in.  Where there is a void, those that feel themselves best positioned
to fill it will attempt to do so.  Apple is trying to claim the
regulatory powers that protect its interests, because no one else has
figured out where the regulatory powers belong, particularly with all
the idiocy, infighting and failed power grabs at the FCC in recent
years.  Eventually the public interest will catch up.  Um, probably.

Michael M.

-- 
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within
limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add
'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's
will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
--Thomas Jefferson



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